Description

North Face Icefield or Powell Peak Icefield is the wide snowfield west of Powell Peak and Vanquished Buttress, above Sky Pond in Loch Vale. A stellar alpine ice route, it is best climbed in mid- to late summer when the snow has slid and hard gray alpine ice is revealed. A number of variations are possible, the most consistent ice and steepest line is to the right of the rock rib high on the route. When we climbed it, enough melting had occured that there was some steep slush/ice mix and a little mixed climbing to get into the right side of the route. It is definitely worth it for 200+' of perfect ice.

Protection

Ice screws and a few nuts might be helpful when this route is "in" and if you choose to rope up.

One of the rock couloirs between the steepest ice/snow field and the less steep snow field was blasting out very significant quantities of rock 7/18/2. It was leaving a good sized fan of fresh grey granite. This may affect the approach to this climb.

How do you get down from the top of the North Face Ice Field? There are several options, but only one of them is safe and practical. The ice field tops out on the Continental Divide just shy of 13000 feet. The best and safest descent is to hike the Divide behind Point 13015, behind Taylor Peak 13153 and descend the Andrews Glacier and Andrews Creek Trail back to the Loch Vale Trail. This means that you carry all your gear with you because a return to the base of the climb is fairly inconvenient. Alternatives: You can descend the Taylor Glacier Head Wall. I have done this, but it is no piece of cake. You can descend the NE Ridge of Powell Peak to the first col, then descend north to Sky Pond. This is dangerous and is not recommended. A final option is to follow the west side of the Continental Divide all the way to the summit of Flattop Mountain and hike down the nice trail to Bear Lake. This is the long way home.

This is called the "Thatchtop-Powell" icefield in a couple of guidebooks (e.g. Gillett, Cooper "Colorado Snow Climbs"), which is an odd name since it doesn't actually finish between Thatchtop and Powell -- it finishes on the Taylor Peak side of Powell. Powell North Face is a better name.

As of late Sept 2011, this was hard neve with a thin layer of new snow. Angle was about 45 for the most part, maybe 50-55 degrees at the top of the couloir right of the rock rib. Cooper's book says 65 degrees, but we didn't think it was that steep.